Romer: Inaction on Unemployment is Shameful

People should listen to Christina Romer:“I frankly don’t understand why policy makers aren’t more worried about the suffering of real families,” former Council of Economic Advisors Chair Christina Romer, who left the Administration last fall, said during a discussion at Vanderbilt University in Nashville Tuesday. “I think there are tools we have tools we have that we can use, and I think it’s shameful that we’re not using them.” [...]
“If I have a complaint about policy these days, it’s that we’re not doing enough,” she said. “That goes all the way up to the Federal Reserve, [which] could be taking more aggressive action. It goes to the Congress and the Administration – there are fiscal policy actions they could be taking.”
What can I say? She’s right. She’d also be a great choice for a Federal Reserve Board of Governors seat. It’s painful to watch the country grind through massive joblessness simply because key politicians don’t seem to realize they have tools at their disposal.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A jury convicted two ex-Vanderbilt football players on Tuesday of raping a former student, rejecting claims that they were too drunk to know what they were doing and that a college culture of binge drinking and promiscuous sex should be blamed for the attack.

(Reuters) - Three swastikas were spray-painted in the house of a Jewish fraternity in Vanderbilt University in Tennessee and the school is investigating the incident as a hate crime, a university official said on Tuesday.

Federal Reserve policy makers last month debated an April interest-rate hike, with several officials leaning against such a move because it would send the wrong signal and others saying it might be warranted.
“Several expressed the view that a cautious approach to raising rates would be prudent or noted their concern that raising the target range as soon as April would signal a sense of urgency they did not think appropriate,” minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee’s March 15-16 meeting released Wednesday in Washington said.

Some reporters have already started to ask me what I hope to hear in the State of the Union address President Obama will deliver next week. I can’t really express my wishes any better than Christina Romer, the President’s former Council of Economic Advisers Chair, did in her New York Times column last weekend. In particular (emphasis added):